


we'll never be those kids again

by livj707



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Archie Andrews-centric, Childhood Memories, Flashbacks, Fluff, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sort Of, also another weird ass omniscient pov, can't relate, episode s02e21: judgement night, imagine having a regular posting schedule, jarchie even if it doesn't seem like it, other characters are mentioned ever-so-briefly, sorry - Freeform, that's p much it, the tense changes constantly but i swear it's intentional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 07:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16718617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livj707/pseuds/livj707
Summary: jughead and archie used to have nightmares about elm street, and now they have nightmares about riverdale.or, before fear was bullets and black hoods and flashbacks and blood, it was the dusty horror vhs at the bottom of the andrews’ movie collection.





	we'll never be those kids again

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to the lovely @silverdaggers who not only writes the most beautiful crap but aLSO inspired me to write this hunk of junk in the first place (and pulled me out of my long bout of writer’s block which i am so unbelievably thankful for) <33
> 
> rated t for flashbacks, ptsd, and mentions of blood/gun wounds

when archie and jughead were kids - nine and ten years old, to be exact - all they wanted to do, the very core of their beings, it seemed, was to watch the old vhs of ‘a nightmare on elm street.’

it sat at the very bottom of the andrews’ movie collection, which was arguably  _ far  _ too large, stacked precariously high (and god knew it was only a matter a time before something - a labrador retriever or a couple of young, gangly boys, for example - brought it tumbling to the ground). jughead often wondered how a family of three possibly needed to own that many movies, and knowing them as well as he did he was fairly certain they couldn’t have watched more than half of them. the dust on that particular one was so thick the text was barely legible, and archie had to wipe it with the sleeve of his oversized shirt before the boys were able to scan the cover. and yet it captivated them to such a remarkable extent, so much so that it was all they talked about, all they thought about, like a blanket of fog obscuring all other ideas.

all kids went through phases of obsessions once in a while, being extremely impressionable and  _ relentless _ when it came to what they wanted. all kids had obsessions, and this was theirs. just years prior it was star wars, years before that it was their shared love of some cartoon that came on in the mornings. years later it would be star wars again. it was funny how that worked out, that attempt to reclaim their youth after all that had happened...happened. 

archie wondered if all kids went through a period of lusting over that thrill of adrenaline: haunted houses, spooky stories near campfires, halloween with its costumes and terror-filled horror shows and above all, scary movies. it seemed so...linear, sequential. that stage of life.

it always backfired, however, and crying and night terrors would shove that desire of all-things-scary into a secluded box where it would remain until said child wasn’t a child anymore. kids were foolish. kids needed to be protected. kids were stupid and kids thought they wanted to watch the old vhs of ‘a nightmare on elm street.’ 

fred and mary both declined, obviously - “maybe when you’re older,” “it’s too scary,” “it’ll only give you bad dreams,”  _ blah, blah, blah _ excuses thrown over their shoulders with chuckles and soft, apologetic smiles. archie and jughead only groaned and rolled their eyes, the standard reaction to any child annoyed by the blanket of protection they were ensured, the one they took for granted. 

and wow, children were  _ stupid.  _ the parents always made comments towards them (“daredevils,” fp said once, to which fred laughed and agreed). even betty didn’t want to take part in half the shit they got into: blowing stuff up in the kitchen, playing baseball in the house, sliding down staircases, anything and everything that fell into their crazy minds. the whole reason they got to climbing atop the slant of archie’s roof in the first place was because of that same thrill, though they’d be lying if they said it wasn’t where they spent most of their days for a long time.

and so, the old vhs of ‘a nightmare on elm street’ stared at them with a thick layer of dust at the bottom of the andrews’ film collection, and the ‘daredevils’ that they were left no room for compliance of fred and mary’s wishes. 

“i don’t see what the big deal is,” little archie grumbled angrily as he pulled his knees up to his chest. it was a particularly chilly saturday night, just a few days before halloween. mary had already purchased both of their costumes, which were in bags hung up on archie’s doorknob. jughead had quietly protested against this, but mary had assured him it was no big deal (“you're family, jug.”) archie, arguably  naïve, didn't see any problem with it at all, since jughead had been more-or-less living with them for the past week, anyway. “i’ve seen way scarier, and we aren’t even that young! i think my grandpa let my dad watch it when he was about our age.”

jughead collapsed on the bed next to him (they were little enough at this point that both of them would fit with plenty of room to spare) and rolled his eyes in response, having listened to the redhead’s incessant rambling countless times before. he wouldn’t forget the look of archie’s room then; the plastic stick-on stars above archie’s bed still had some years before the glow began to fade, his bedspread was vibrant with its blue and yellow batman print, and where a guitar would later stand was now a toy chest that was filled to the brim and overflowing. it looked every bit like a child’s bedroom, bright colors livening up what would otherwise be something dull and grey and lifeless - the color of adulthood, maybe. 

some kids thought they were fearless, tough as nails, invincible. these boys thought they were all of those things. jughead figured if there was a human equivalent of a puffed-out chest, it would take the form of archibald andrews. you’d think there was a permanent superhero cape glued to his back at all times with the way this boy acted, the way he thought he could take on the world, this world that so completely did not deserve someone like him.

(and when they were older, they  _ would  _ be fearless, tough as nails, invincible, all of the above. they had to be)

“reggie’s already seen it, and even kevin has,” archie continued, his cheeks flushed the same color of his hair. “it isn’t fair. someone’s gonna end up spoiling it, for sure.”

“shut up, arch,” jughead replied, staring at the empty space above archie’s toy chest. “i’m thinking.” archie grumbled in response, rubbing his fingers over the bat that leaned against his nightstand, the same bat they used to play baseball in the house which ended up breaking a lamp in the living room, an incident the two boys spent far too long trying to cover up. it was still shiny with polish, though the handle was cold; archie had made the super grown-up decision to put the thing down for a while until he was confident his clumsiness wouldn't get in the way. 

(it was the same bat archie would use to guard the door after - )

(the same bat his dad would use after - )

“i got it,” jughead spoke up suddenly. he was always like that, silent, lost in thought until he'd put all the pieces of whatever plan he'd hatched up together. unlike archie, who rambled on and on until he'd managed to figure it out on his own, much to the annoyance of, well, everyone. 

they made plans to stay up in archie's room until about midnight before sneaking out. mary went to bed pretty early, and fred was out by nine or ten, but they wanted to be safe as he was anything but a heavy sleeper. at that time, they carefully crept down the staircase and quietly took apart the stack of movies until the desired one was within grasp.

(and archie longed for the days when being quiet meant avoiding waking up your father in the middle of the night and  _ not  _ avoiding being seen by the masked man in pop's)

they snuck down the basement stairs with an armload of blankets, being careful to avoid the creaky step about a third of the way down, and popped the movie into the vhs player. the television in the basement had its fair share of dust, too, and it was quite a bit smaller than the one upstairs, but it would do. they sat and waited as the main menu loaded, buzzing with excitement. the thrill of adrenaline still hadn’t worn off.

they got through half of it. maybe not even. they couldn’t even sleep in separate beds afterwards without shaking in fear.

years later, they’d rewatch it on the couch with betty and veronica and  _ laugh.  _ but kids were little, and kids were soft, and kids were stupid. and kids needed to be protected.

kids slid open bedroom windows and climbed atop slanted roofs (“careful, arch, or you’ll get another scar”) and surveyed quiet suburbias in their most vulnerable state. they draped enormous jackets over each other, one on each shoulder like they were blankets and said “yeah, we’re gonna get away. far away, in that direction, if we’re lucky,” pointing with small fingers, bodies touching, breath visible on chillier autumn nights. mapping out their future, their lives, side-by-side. 

fred and mary knew about their little horror movie escapade, not surprisingly, having found the disrupted movie stack the next morning. they laughed it off, like a secret shared amongst themselves, that ‘i told you so’ parenting moment. but they didn’t bring it up again, nor did they ever say anything about it to jughead and archie.

kids are stupid, and kids need to learn things the hard way, sometimes.

but you can't  _ be  _ a kid in this town - no, riverdale doesn't allow it. you can be shielded, sure, but that shield of protection wears off sooner or later. riverdale destroys kids, rips them apart from the inside out, drowning their innocence in sweetwater river.

it's a curse woven into the roots of this town, laced in the water and air, smoothed between every brick of every building. you  _ have  _ to grow up if you want to survive with every part of you still intact, have to dry your tears and let go of your parent’s hand and face the world with your head held high. that was the deal you made to that town, to the universe, the moment your parents or grandparents or great-grandparents set foot on its soil. 

(because everyone knows there's no  _ leaving  _ this town, either).

it isn't right and it isn't fair.

but it’s real.

the elm street memory was tucked away and jughead and archie grew up, grew up to dry their tears and face the world with their head held high, to be fearless, tough as nails, invincible. 

but they’re  _ still  _ kids. even years later. they always were.

the only difference is that they used to dream about elm street, and now they dream about riverdale.

  
  


he’s long forgotten the feeling of it, but archie remembers a recurring nightmare that used to plague him nearly every night in his childhood. he still knows what it's about, vaguely, but the details are shaky, and all he really remembers from it is being chased; paralyzing fear and heavy breaths and unsteady heartbeats. fred and mary spent countless nights by his bedside, assuring him what he was seeing wasn’t real and that he had all the power to fight it off.

“you’re strong, archie,” fred told him once, sat on the edge of his bed in the middle of the night after a particularly unsettling experience with this nightmare. he was around six at the time, his father smoothing his hair back in an attempt to comfort him. “you’re strong. you can fight this. be brave, okay?”

archie's cheeks were tear-stained. he didn’t  _ feel _ strong.

it’s been years since this dream resurfaced, and it now exists as nothing more than a faint, distant memory, a dark, damaged piece of his mind he’s only ever able to encounter in his sleep. the only time he remembers it, really,  _ actually  _ remembers it, is right before it happens, this feeling of dread, of absolute and unspeakable  _ terror. _

the shooting is like that.

unless he tries really, really hard, archie can’t remember the diner. not like he remembered it in the first few days after the incident, at least. he’s been told that’s normal, that the brain will naturally attempt to block out traumatic memories as an act of self-preservation. the diner is a fuzzy memory, a detached part of himself he has to strain to relive besides the most basic of details. if he didn’t know any better he’d assume it didn’t happen to him at all, just the tailend of a tv show he caught a glimpse of before it was turned off. 

not that he  _ wants  _ to relive it, anyway. he doesn’t go looking for flashbacks, for night terrors, in places they wouldn’t normally be. he doesn’t try to remember, doesn’t  _ want  _ to remember.

but sometimes he has to. and therapy sessions don’t take him back to that day. police interrogations don’t take him back to that day.

going into pop’s does. using the bathroom does. masks do, guns do, loud noises do. 

that’s when the feeling of absolute and unspeakable  _ terror  _ arises. the panic, the dread, the sickening realization before a flashback of  _ i know exactly what’s going to happen and i don’t know what i’m going to do when it does. _

it has taken archie years to learn that fear isn’t what he thought it was.

fear is something that turns your veins to ice and your legs to jelly and your mind to an incomprehensible blur of _no_ ’s and pleas and darkened edges.

fear kept archie up night after night after night, guarding his front door with shadows and unspeakable demons in his eyes nobody in their right mind would ever want to decipher. head held high, chest puffed out. that invisible superhero cape.

fear is the living room of archie’s childhood home - his  _ home, _ always and forever - with its many walls that, in this moment, are closing in on him, threatening to shift into pop’s diner walls at any given moment. the distant rumble of traffic into screaming and glass shattering. home into horror.

he thought it would be over. he thought it would end. 

today. yesterday. any day.

he thinks it’s going to stop.

and then with the abruptness of a bullet leaving its chamber, archie has snapped back to reality, and there he is, in the entrance of his home, pain from the previous scuffle drumming against his nerves, staring directly into another barrel of  _ another _ gun. he stares, and he stares. he stares with his heart lodged in his throat, with his thoughts blending together like a dizzying memory, spinning, fading, a tightness in his chest like he’s swallowed a mouthful of saltwater. 

every single comprehensible thought vanishes, replaced by the sound of running water, of shattering glass. 

no no  _ no _

_ (please, no) _

he stares into the empty black of the chamber, into the horrific  _ nothingness  _ (and if only there really was  _ nothing  _ in that godawful chamber), and his brain turns over memories of water dripping into the sink, of blood dripping into the sink. he tries to breathe, breathe,  **breathe** like his therapist told him to do (only this isn’t a flashback, this is  _ real, _ it’s real and and  _ and _ )

his eyes drift upwards to look into the man’s eyes.

green.

they’re green, and suddenly he’s back  _ there, _ and the walls bleed - no, not even -  _ transform  _ into blinding fluorescent reds and pinks and purples and he’s there, he’s there bathed in the warm glow of the diner and his sneakers are skidding on the checkered floor. running, pulse quickening, throwing himself between the bullet and its intended target like he used to do when bullets were footballs and diners were high school football fields, before fear was inescapable and sleep was a prison, before that fateful december morning when his whole world ended. 

he’s here and there, everywhere and nowhere, and taking breaths is impossible no matter how many times he tells himself to breathe breathe  _ breathe  _ \- 

because with each agonizing breath he’s running in front of his father with  _ desperation  _ and the hot of the bullet is ripping past him, and he  _ wishes _ he felt pain. he wishes he hadn’t hesitated. he wishes he hadn’t been too late.

because - 

then he blinks and he’s collapsed onto the checkered floor with the scent and the taste of copper suffocating him, bringing tears to his eyes, filling his insides, coating his lungs. red on the ground - not bright, strawberry red, but a dark, angry crimson, the color of  _ too late. _ his dad on the floor, clutching his arms that are pressed against the wound, eyes glossed over, pain rendering him unable to speak. 

_ it isn’t real, it isn’t real, it isn’t real... _

he’s back in the dimly-lit house but the taste of blood is still there, and the barrel of the gun is still there, and all he can do is stare, lets his eyes drift upwards to  _ stare  _ into those green eyes and he doesn’t even feel his heartbeat anymore (and he’s halfway certain it’s stopped completely). all sounds, real and fictional, fade to distant buzzing in his ears, drifting away with each passing second.

then he’s in the diner and he’s falling to his knees so hard the pain shoots up into his skull and archie - whoever archie is, wherever he is - squeezes his eyes so tightly he sees full galaxies, stars forming and dying behind his eyelids. the point of the gun makes contact with his head and he can’t even fucking  _ breathe  _ and 

he blinks again and he sees blood and bones, broken vessels spilling red red  **red** onto the floor, chaos and catastrophe ebbing and flowing beneath his eyelids, crawling beneath his skin, fear flooding his body in waves until he’s sure it's all he’s made of and he just wants it to  **_stop._ **

what if the trigger is pulled? will it stop?

and then he’s back in his house and his dad is there, emerging from the other room, but it paralyzes him more than it relieves him because it’s far, far too _familiar_. he wants to scream _no, stop, get away, please, i can’t lose you_ , but there’s an invisible barrier between his brain and his mouth and no matter how hard he tries he simply can’t get the words out. he sees it all again, sees his father spread his arms wide in front of him with a resounding “no!” and fall in a crumpled heap in archie’s arms as the bullet fires _again,_ hitting his father _again._ the _diner_ is a tape that replays itself on a loop, crackling film of gunshots and collapse and broken bodies and broken lives. 

he doesn’t remember when he started breathing again. he doesn’t feel it. 

when the masked man leaves, archie swears he hears a bell along with it.

when he looks down at his father, he sees blood even when there is none.

and that’s what fear is, sometimes.

maybe it isn’t linear. sequential. predictable. normal. okay.

  
  


sitting on the slanted roof of archie’s home protected the boys, until it didn’t.

extra blankets and batman comforters protected the boys, until they didn’t.

fear was escapable, until it wasn’t.

they were kids, and before they knew it, they couldn’t be.

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanna say that every soft guitar song with singing is jughead and archie’s song sorry i don't make the rules


End file.
